The Truth of Tom Marvolo Riddle
by sweet-and-simple
Summary: It would surprise a great deal of people to know that Lord Voldemort was not Tom Marvolo Riddle. They were the same person, same body, anyway, but what had made Tom Tom was not what made Lord Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Evil Dumbledore Slight TR/HP
1. Something Good Comes From Something Bad

It would surprise a great deal of people to know that Lord Voldemort was not Tom Marvolo Riddle.

They were the same person, same body, anyway, but what had made Tom Tom was not what made Lord Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Lord Voldemort began, in the smallest of ways, one day in summer, almost eleven years old, when an old man 'popped' into his room at the orphanage.

Tom wasn't happy as an orphan, but he was wise beyond his years and he understood that his situation could be far worse. Instead of being barely tolerated, he could be outright hated. Instead of the meager care he got, he could be living off the streets, not even a lukewarm bath waiting for him at the end of the day. Tom had learned to find pleasure in the small things, the things the other orphans complained about.

Until the old man came.

Tom looked up at him, this ancient figure of old wisdom that looked down at him with sad blue eyes.

He introduced himself as Albus Dumbledore, Transfiguration professor at a wizarding school called Hogwarts. And then he slowly sat himself down on the edge of Tom's cot and he folded his wrinkled hands in his lap. There was a stick in one hand, smooth and coming to a round point – a wand, Dumbledore clarified him. Tom would have one soon.

"Tom…" Dumbledore began carefully, paused, and then continued. "Let me explain to you the balance of good and bad."

And Tom listened, because he was patient and knowledgeable and always willing to understand different viewpoints of different subjects. This was what made him wise.

"People unite under good to battle those that unite under bad," Dumbledore said. Tom already knew this, but he stayed quiet. "But it takes a great evil to unite a world: Man, Tom. Man has always been the greatest evil, the most manipulative and conniving. Under one single man, thousands can come together to destroy a way of life." Dumbledore didn't continue.

Tom didn't think that was right, though. "The same can be said for thousands coming together under a single man for the greater good," he pointed out.

But Dumbledore shook his head. "Sadly, that is not as true. A good cause is not founded till a bad one has been revealed: orphanages are not built unless there are orphans to fill them. Animals are not saved unless they need saving. Abuse shelters are not funded unless someone is abused. Rarely is a good thing done when it is not for the sake to… relieve what a bad thing has wrought."

Tom considered it. "But, then, how can a good thing be done at all, if every good thing is done to battle something bad?"

"You can give a gift to someone you love," Dumbledore pointed out. "And they will appreciate it, perhaps need it, but not because they couldn't have gotten themselves – merely because you got it for them. That is a good thing that happened when there was no bad to influence it."

Tom thought this made sense at well. "Why are you telling me all this?"

Dumbledore softly closed his eyes and he was perfectly still there, perched on the edge of his bed, light filtering in through the open window. There was no sense of peace that came from the man, but, instead, a sense of foreboding.

"The wizarding world," Dumbledore said at last, "needs to be united against an ultimate evil."

Suddenly, he knew what Dumbledore was insinuating. Was _asking_ him to do.

"You want me to be evil."

"For the sake of uniting a world, yes."

"Why me?"

"Because you, when determined, can make anything happen. Anything your heart desires. If things were to go differently, in many years, you could have possibly become Headmaster of Hogwarts, which is a great position of power over future generations. There is a Ministry of Magic in our world, as there is a Ministry in this one, and you possibly could have become Minister."

He wouldn't become either of those things, though, was what Dumbledore was saying. Because he was to be evil.

Tom thought about this for awhile. He didn't necessarily want to be evil. He wasn't a bad child, he had never hurt anyone or caused uncouth grief for the workers or other children at the orphanage.

He supposed, though, that he wasn't necessarily good, either. Nor necessarily a good child. He never went out of his way to help others, or aide in any chores that weren't assigned to him. He did not comfort the younger children or look up to the older ones. He did not make friends, nor did he ever really speak unless spoken to, and he had no sappy need for an animal familiar like all of the children did, trying to adopt toads and frogs and squirrels and stray dogs and cats.

The orphanage did not allow them to keep pets; Tom neither told the workers that this rule was being disobeyed, nor did he help the other children in hiding their pets whenever a worker became suspicious.

He was in-between, he believed. Balancing on a too-thin fence, leaning one way and then the other. He could go either way, but this man was asking him to fall into the dark side where the grass was yellow and the skies were dark and the tree was bare.

"I will think about it," he declared at last.

Dumbledore only nodded once.

~::~

_Author's Note: Chapters will be short to moderately average length, just so everyone knows. It looked too awkward when I tried to make them longer. _


	2. Leaning Closer to the Right

In time, Tom would go to Hogwarts and fall into the House of Slytherin. The professors would ooh and aah over his excellence. His grades would be top-notch, his manners impeccable, and he was destined to become a prefect in a few years and then Head Boy. They foretold a great many things in his future, _good_ things.

He still didn't make any friends, there wasn't really anyone he felt a need to connect to, but he found himself happier with this life. He did help and aide in any way he could, being the assistant librarian, helping the custodian, doing menial labor for the medi-witch, even running errands for professors during his free periods because they could not leave their class.

They said he was outgoing in every way, his professors and house mates. Children from other houses did not even mind him, though he was a Slytherin. All around, people… liked him.

The sway was getting stronger. Towards the light side, where the grass was green and there were just enough clouds in the sky to throw beautiful, mesmerizing shadows on the ground, and the tree was full and in bloom.

He was inanely happy.

Until Dumbledore asked him to stay after class, that was.

"Tom," Dumbledore greeted. Then, "Have you come to a decision?"

He nodded. "I have, Professor Dumbledore."

"And what will it be?"

"I want nothing to do with your plan."

Because, while it made sense in a distant and skewed way, he had read his books and done his research.

The conclusion he had drawn up could be summed into one word: Grindelwald.

Grindelwald was the Dark Wizard in power; his crimes had not even reached a peak, he was still free to cause chaos and destruction, and yet, for one reason or another… Dumbledore wanted Tom to turn to the dark side.

Tom had pondered for a very long time why that was, why Dumbledore would want two Dark Lords on the rise. The answer had come to him suddenly during his Muggle Studies class.

"_I once stayed with a muggle,"_ one of the boys in his class had nervously told them, after the professor had asked if anyone had any experience with the strange and powerless creatures that were just like them and, at the same time, not. _"They didn't have any magic, l-like you know, but…"_ He had paused and the teacher had excitedly cued him on. _"They pulled out a frozen loaf of bread before their first loaf was done and I asked why. They could have used a defrosting charm or a keep-fresh charm, but they didn't…"_

Tom had tuned out the rest of the explanation. He had already known why – simply, so the loaf of bread could defrost as the first loaf was being finished off –

And he had suddenly known.

"You are going to get rid of Grindelwald soon, are you not?" he asked Dumbledore softly. "There was a mention of you in one of the books about him; that you two used to be friends, but you split apart, you, for the Light Side, and him, for the Dark Side. It was more than that, though, was it not?"

Dumbledore looked down, then back up. The twinkle in his blue eyes that Tom had become familiar with was gone.

"Possibly tomorrow or next week, ten, twenty, thirty years from now, who knows, but, yes. I will have to stop Grindelwald's and his reign of destruction."

He avoided Tom's second question and Tom noticed.

"Were you and Grindelwald lovers?"

Dumbledore tensed. "It is time for you to go to the Great Hall, Tom. Lunch is being served, I believe, and we would not want to miss such an important meal." He moved towards the door.

"Is he innocent? Grindelwald, I mean. Is he doing this so that there can be good to battle the bad?"

But Dumbledore ignored him and left.

~::~

Dumbledore acted strangely towards him after that. Tense and weary. He would whisper things to the other professors, small things that wouldn't make him seem suspicious, nor make the other professors change their attitudes towards Tom in an instant. Over time, however, Tom noticed the watchful gazes and the nervous shifts in his professors.

"Don't ye worry," Rubeus Hagrid, one of the Gryffindor boys, told him. "They're just nervous 'cause ye could take their jobs in an instant if ye wanted to."

He smiled, appreciating the compliment. "Thank you, Rubeus."

"No need for thanks, just sayin' the truth. And just call me Hagrid, everyone does."

He never really knew what to think of the half-giant. He was dull-minded, certainly, but a definite Gryffindor; he was loyal and brave and rarely downtrodden, despite the fact that his spells were never really as powerful as everyone else's and his pots usually exploded every other week in Potions class. But there was definitely some Slytherin in him and Tom found that amusing.

More than once, Tom had seen Hagrid sneak off into the Forbidden Forest. It had taken him awhile to guess that Hagrid knew that Tom knew of his nightly escapes, if only because the professors never realized and Tom had thought it painfully obvious.

What had been painfully obvious was that Hagrid simply hadn't been trying to hide from a fellow student he knew wouldn't rat him out. For such a giant man, he could be strangely quick and sneaky.

Tom was humbled by Hagrid's trust in him. To a degree. Hagrid himself was a terrible secret keeper, so there were at least two dozen students who knew. It was just lucky for Hagrid that no one cared to tattle.

Tom stopped just as they were about to part ways. "Hagrid," he called out as the Gryffindor went to turn down a different hall.

"Yeah?"

"May I call you my friend?"

Hagrid cried fat, sloppy tears, picked him up, and hugged him tight. Tom was half-disgusted by the display and because Hagrid was staining his robes, but the hug was warm and surprisingly soft and Tom dealt with it for a few moments before gently urging Hagrid to release him.

Tom thought it was a wise choice to make Hagrid a friend of his. He would never betray Tom, not even if Dumbledore tried to convince him to. Tom had a feeling his life might come to that: Dumbledore manipulating everything around him when he learned he could not manipulate Tom himself.


	3. A Push To the Left

Tom never met his uncle Morfin. Dumbledore assured him that he wasn't a pleasant man to meet.

Nor did he meet his muggle father and grandparents. Dumbledore told him he wouldn't have wanted to meet them either.

But Tom heard of how his uncle Morfin murdered his muggle family with the Killing Curse. The newspapers had noted that Morfin seemed dazed and not altogether sure of what had happened; however, since he had already spent three years in Azkaban for prior crimes against muggles, it was believable.

"Why did you kill them?" Tom asked Dumbledore quietly.

The Professor handed him a signet ring and, just as quietly, ordered him to wear it. When he refused, Dumbledore charmed it on him.

When he tried to cut his finger off to remove it, the knife broke. The second time, his finger grew back – with the ring still attached.

~::~

It was his third year before Professor Dumbledore bid him stay after class again.

"There is an ancient evil in this castle," he told Tom.

Tom, though he knew where this was going, stayed out of politeness. He would only prove to be ignorant if he left and Professor Dumbledore could assign him a detention for departing before being allowed to do so.

"Do you know what a basilisk is, Tom?"

He nodded. A basilisk like the muggle world knew was far different from the reality of it: the basilisk was a serpent that could grow to be as big as a fully matured giant. If one looked indirectly into the basilisk's eyes, such as through the reflection of a mirror or in the reflection of a puddle of water, they would be petrified. Luckily, they could be cured by a Mandrake Restorative Drought. Directly, however, and one could be instantly killed.

"You are aware that you are a parselmouth, are you not?"

He feigned surprise. "A what, Professor Dumbledore?"

But he did know. He had talked to snakes at the orphanage since he was old enough to speak, though, again, he'd felt no great connection to any of his serpentine companions. When he had come to Hogwarts, he had researched his ability after finding out from two other Slytherins that it was not a gift everyone had.

He knew he was a direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, and that that was where his parselmouth had come from. He knew it was considered a Dark Gift as well.

And he knew where Dumbledore was going with this.

Dumbledore stared at him for a very long moment, deeply, as if he could read Tom's mind. Just in case he was, because he knew of Legilimency as well, the ability of reading one's mind, Tom closed off his thoughts and conjured to mind the chances of Slytherin beating Huffelpuff at the upcoming Quidditch match.

Dumledore's eyes narrowed just slightly. "It's too late, Tom."

Perhaps for that secret, he decided.

"And you guessed right."

He sighed. "Professor Dumbledore, I have no wish to have a pet basilisk."

Nor did he have any wish to use one. Basilisks were Dark Creatures. Incredibly dangerous, even to wizards.

"You do not need it as a pet, but it would be beneficial if you used it."

"Beneficial to who?"

He didn't answer that, though. "Will you do it?"

"I do not believe I have to," he retorted lightly.

Dumbledore gave him a sage look. "I understand. You may go."

He stood and went to leave. His back to the professor, he sensed the rise in magic a moment too late.

"_Imperio_!"

~::~

He walked in a daze. Muggle-borns were being attacked by a Dark Creature and no one could do anything about it.

Not even he could. His three attempts at ordering the basilisk to stop had been countered by Dumbledore enslaving him to tell it to attack again.

"Is there something the matter, Tom?" asked Headmaster Dippet.

Tom was pale and hardly lucid these days. Numerous Imperius Curses had picked at him, and his fights to free himself from under them had only come to drain him. He flinched at the Headmaster's voice and looked up at him with wide, dazed eyes. "Just tired, Headmaster. I've been very… busy."

"… I… see…" But Headmaster Dippet didn't seem to actually see. If he did, he said nothing and stopped nothing and Professor Dumbledore continued to use him.

~::~

Tom had never particularly liked Myrtle, the whiny, self-pitying girl that was constantly having a fit. She wasn't loyal nor brave nor outgoing, merely outspoken and unwise and intrusive. She couldn't understand why she had so few friends and Tom was too polite to tell her why, though there was more than one time when he had been tempted to.

But that didn't mean he had wanted her to die.

He bit back his sobs and closed his eyes against the tears. He wouldn't break down. He would fight back.

Dumbledore would one day use his death for his own agenda. Tom was going to take that from him.

He cornered a distraught Slughorn and demanded answers. He had heard of such a thing called a… horcrux? What were they, what good were they, could they really keep him from dying?

When he had his answers and had thoroughly traumatized Slughorn, he took his diary that he had never written in and reached deep inside of himself magically. He pulled out a piece of his fractured soul, one of the most painful things he had ever done, and placed it inside the journal. And then he hid it.

Dumbledore would have to destroy it before he could destroy him.

~::~

When he faced the professor again, it was with practiced occlumency and scarlet red eyes.

Dumbledore closed his eyes. "What have you done?"

He thought, for a moment, that this would be the end of his supposed 'Dark Reign', brought down to a smaller scale of, not uniting, but separating a school. He had heard the rumors that Hogwarts was to be shut down; wizarding houses that had jokingly shared stereotypes now could not stand each other.

Slytherins were all evil.

Huffelpuffs were all dimwitted romantics.

Ravenclaws were all stuck-up.

Gryffindors were…

But that was just it. Gryffindors were the ones who began the prejudices, and the Gryffindor House was under Professor Dumbledore.

Tom didn't doubt for a moment that Professor Dumbledore had made the rifts. He also didn't doubt that Professor Dumbledore had failed, if it was his goal to bring Hogwarts together.

"Your eyes, Tom," Dumbledore clarified. "What have you done?"

He kept his mind carefully blank. When he felt a growing headache, he upped his occlumency, knowing that Dumbledore was trying to push through the dark and force his memories from him.

"I have no clue what you are talking about, Professor Dumbledore," he hissed. "I am far more concerned about the girl who died."

"That was unfortunate," Dumbledore admitted. "But there must be casualties if the greater good is to win."

"So is it for the greater good that a young girl died?"

"Yes."

He kept his cold rage under control. Emotion would only disrupt his occlumency.

"They want to close Hogwarts down. Is that for the greater good as well?"

"No… That was not planned for. Do not fear, Tom, you will be taking care of that as well."

He dodged out of the room before Dumbledore could throw the curse.

He knew it was futile, though. He'd never been able to escape before and this time would be no different. He tried, though.

And when Dumbledore did catch him, just before he made it to the Great Hall, he did try to fight the curse.

And when he didn't manage to fight the curse, he screamed in his own mind as he accused Hagrid and his spider Aragog for the murder. Lies came out of his mouth like the flow of a river, adding to the number of things Hagrid had done wrong, none of them true.

Hagrid cried and Tom knew it wasn't because he was going to be expelled, or because they were going to take his wand away, or even because he would never harm another living soul, especially someone as undeserving of death as Myrtle.

He cried because it was Tom who was lying, Tom who was his friend, and Tom, for the first time in his life, wanted nothing more than to apologize.

He learned later that Dumbledore consoled Hagrid. He gave him a pink umbrella that was secretly his broken wand, restored. He even convinced Headmaster Dippet to keep Hagrid at Hogwarts as a Gamekeeper.

It wasn't perfect, but he knew Hagrid would be happy with it.

What Tom wasn't happy with was that it made Dumbledore look like the good person, the forgiving one, to Hagrid, and Hagrid's loyalty and courage belonged to Dumbledore for it. Hagrid would do anything for Dumbledore, just like, not too long ago, he would have done anything for Tom.

Tom saw Hagrid only twice over the next few years. Both times, Hagrid left as quickly as he could, in tears and angry, and Tom would stare after him.

There went his friend. Dumbledore had chosen well when he had accused Hagrid using Tom; it alienated Tom from the one person he did trust, as well as outing Hagrid's strolls through the Forbidden Forest. Tom got a trophy for his 'deed' and that further distanced him from ever having the chance of explaining the truth to the gentle half-giant. When he received the trophy, he melted it and burned what was left, outraged by what it meant.

In time, it will be revealed that this was where the evil of Tom Marvolo Riddle had begun: in Hogwarts, with the Chamber of Secrets and a basilisk, balanced on the accusations against an honest man. Perhaps Dumbledore would alter others' memories of him, create a few elaborate lies, so that it looked like his evil had begun long ago, before he had ever learned of magic.

_Born evil_, perhaps.

It wasn't perfect, but it did as Dumbledore wanted.


	4. The Greatest Sacrifice

"What will you do once I graduate?" Tom asked Dumbledore one day. He had grown impossibly handsome and charming and no one suspected that he was tired to the bone, worn away by Dumbledore's constant manipulations. There hadn't been another incident like in third year, but there had been smaller things, things that had near driven him mad with his impossibility to stop them.

"We will continue," Dumbledore answered simply.

Tom wanted to say that they wouldn't, that he would be beyond Dumbledore's reach, but he knew he wouldn't be. Freedom was, by now, an impossibility unless Dumbledore released him himself.

That night, Tom considered his options.

He could kill himself or he could let Dumbledore turn him into a monster, weakening himself along the way in his attempts to fight. Death was a cowardly way to go, but, perhaps, preferable to becoming a Dark Wizard at the whim of a besotted old fool.

But, then, Dumbledore would most likely turn to someone else to become a Dark Wizard. Tom considered himself and just how much mercy and compassion he practiced.

Finally, he decided: he would live, simply so someone else wouldn't have to be evil in his place. His sacrifice kept him content for a very long time to come.

~::~

There wasn't much Tom could be proud of these days. He had no free will, his closest friend hated him, he was destined to become a Dark Lord against his wishes, and he was damn well tired of how everyone looked up to Dumbledore, the greatest evil he had ever known.

But this was something he could enjoy, being the only student outside of the Ravenclaw House to get the Grey Lady to speak to him.

Helena Ravenclaw was not as timid as believed. She was particularly kind, Tom thought, helping lost Ravenclaws or telling them where they might have mislaid something.

"I know about Dumbledore," she told him one day.

He closed his red eyes tiredly. "That does not surprise me, bloody Ravenclaw."

She smiled and he offered a slightly amused look.

"I remember when he was a student here."

"Do you?"

"Oh, yes. He was glory-hungry and prejudiced."

"_Was_ he?"

She frowned sadly. "We knew he wasn't kind or generous. There was a time when we, the ghosts here and some of the professors, were nervous that he would become a Dark Lord. Especially after he became friends with Grindelwald. We knew a little about him back then, that Grindelwald had been expelled from Durmstrang, he was so evil and his experiments so twisted."

Tom nodded. Durmstrang was known for its loose control on their students practicing the Dark Arts. For a student being kicked out for it… He could only imagine.

But that told him something; Grindelwald had been set in his ways before he had met Dumbledore and likewise.

"Then there was an accident; Dumbledore's sister was murdered somehow, and Dumbledore changed. We thought it was all for the better, but –" she gave him a sympathizing look.

He didn't say anything about it, staring distantly at the wall.

"Tom, when you graduate," she paused. "When you graduate, go to Albania. That is where my mother's diadem is. Use it like you used your diary."

His head twisted towards her. "How do you know about my diary?"

"I'm dead, Tom. The school speaks to me, to all of us ghosts. We're a part of it and it's become a part of us. None of us have told Dumbledore about it and we never will, though some of us disagree with your way of rebellion. I, for one, support you."

"Thank you for that. But I can not use the Ravenclaw diadem for that."

"Why not?"

"Because I would have to kill someone."

She looked incredibly sad. "Keep it with you. When Dumbledore makes you kill again, and we both know he will, use it then."

He sighed. "I understand. Thank you."

She told him exactly where the diadem was and he stored the information away for later usage.

He had to do it, he told himself. It would only take so long before Dumbledore discovered his journal. It wasn't as if it was impossible to get Slughorn to admit to their discussion about horcruxes and Dumbledore was smart enough to finish the puzzle on his own.

One more horcrux, he promised himself. Just one more.


	5. Pride and Poison

Tom asked Headmaster Dippet if he could become the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts after graduation.

It was really all he could think to do. All he really wanted to do, actually. Yes, it did put him in close contact with Dumbledore, but Dumbledore would still have him under his control if he moved a thousand miles away. It was up to Tom to teach other students how to defend themselves against wizards like Dumbledore; it was the only thing he could think of to fight back.

But Headmaster Dippet said he was too young and sent him off. He was asked to come back in a few years time, if he was still certain a teaching career was what he wanted.

He went abroad for awhile. In Albania, he found the diadem. Two days later, Dumbledore possessed him and he, under Dumbledore's command, murdered an Albanian whore.

This was following a pattern; leaving a subtle and hidden path of destruction behind him so that others could always look back and nod to themselves and say, yes, that Tom Riddle always had been a suspicious figure.

Yes, that Tom Riddle had always been a dark person.

He took the guilt of the death and his second horcrux out of Albania and to Diagon Alley. The Ministry had offered him numerous positions, but he only wanted something temporary, just until he could find out from Headmaster Dippet if he could have the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position.

Dumbledore appeared beside him. "Follow me. Tom."

His legs moved on his own and followed the professor.

In the end, he was employed at Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley. It was a Dark Arts shop, selling dark artifacts and other evil things.

It was a shock to the Ministry and all offered positions suddenly no longer needed Tom to fill them.

Tom didn't mind. He sent a letter to Headmaster Dippet, saying he was still interested in the teaching position and that, in knowing dark artifacts, he could better teach his students how to defend themselves against them and curses. He made it sound as if it had been his choice and as if he was doing it for the single reason of better educating himself for a job he direly wanted.

Headmaster Dippet sent back a letter accepting his explanation. He was rather proud of Tom, actually.

Tom found that he was good at his job, though. Bargaining cursed objects off of others was easy if he said just the right thing or gave just the right impression. Most of the objects he received, he deactivated or altered. No one was the wiser, not even his employers.

He was doing a good thing, and he was proud of that and his small, unnoticed victory over Dumbledore.

He also managed to make a friend out of one of shop's constant customers, an older woman named Hepzibah Smith. She acted like his grandmother and the affection was well, though coolly, received.

"Let me show you my most prized possessions," she cooed to him, eyes bright.

They were in her home, a beautiful and wealthy piece of history. He had been sent by one of his employers, Mr. Burke, to negotiate with her for her goblin-made armour. Of course, visits with Hepzibah were never quick and were rarely fruitful. He didn't mind that.

She disappeared and waddled back with two objects.

Tom recognized them immediately, but he let her gush about them, enjoying her pride in her collected items.

One of Hufflepuff's Cup and the other Slytherin's Locket.

"That is impressive," he said, surprised.

"Isn't it, though?"

There was a crack and her house elf, Hokey, appeared with a tray. Her hands were trembling; as a matter of fact, her entire form was shaking. She looked around at them with dazed, uncertain eyes, then at her tray.

"Yes, Hokey, dear, those are for us," Hebzibah reminded her ancient house elf patiently. Hokey was forgetful and weak in her old age.

Hokey put down the tray, looking around herself again, as if seeing if there was anything she was forgetting to do, before she went away with another crack.

"I'm alone, you know," Hebzibah pointed out. "No one in the world left of my family but me."

"I understand," he replied, because he did. His mother had died in childbirth, his birth, Dumbledore had slaughtered his muggle family, and his uncle was in Azkaban for it.

He was the only one left, really. And there wasn't much joy he could take in that.

"When I pass away, all of my collectables are going to be sold off. The profits will be given to several charities, you know."

"That is kind of you."

"I've also put three people in my will."

He knew where this was going. "You hardly know me."

"Yes, but I know a good person when I see one. Being wealthy and living as long as I have, collecting what I collect, you get a feel for dark people."

He cast his head downwards.

"When I die, you will get a sum of my fortune and these two artifacts." And she set the cup and locket down on the table between them.

He was ashamed that his vision became blurry. "Thank you," he said humbly, shoulders slumped and heart warm.

"No, thank _you_. If I had ever had a son, I would have wanted him to be like you."

He managed to force a chuckle. "Even though I am a dirty Slytherin and you are a descendent of Helga Hufflepuff herself?"

"Oh, posh. You may be Slytherin, but you're not dirty. I remember the good old days when the houses got along…" She tittered dramatically. "Whatever happened?"

He looked up at Hepzibah, this strange and kind woman who doted on him, who thought him important enough to have her most treasured possessions, and he answered softly, "Dumbledore."

When she looked horrified and pale, he knew she wouldn't listen to the truth. So he added, "He's been trying to change it for some time now. Hopefully, one day, he can reunite the houses."

She put a hand to her breast and chuckled nervously. "Right. That's what you meant. Merlin, Tom! I thought you were insinuating that a man like Dumbledore would _do_ such a thing as separate the houses."

He chuckled too, bitterly.

If only she knew.

~::~

Two days later, he visited again.

Hepzibah was dead in her waiting room, a half-finished cup of cocoa on the small table. She was still warm, so he tried to revive her, thinking, hoping, that she would just take one breath and he could take her to St. Mungo's, that her heart would begin again and he could let go of his dread.

She remained dead.

Tom felt the fracturing of his soul, as if he had caused this, and that was how he knew Dumbledore had been there.

He screamed. He screamed at his own helplessness, his inability to have his own life, the injustices Dumbledore had forced on him, the crimes he had committed without actually committing them. He screamed till his face was purple and his eyes bulged out of their sockets and his voice dwindled to a high-pitched gasp.

"Oh, dears me…"

Panting, he looked up at Hokey.

She looked dazed, yet again, but there was something else in her huge eyes. "Oh, dears me, the sugars, it isn't sugars Hokey put in Mistress's cocoa…"

She was holding a small bottle of… poison.

He grabbed Hepzibah's cup and smelled it. Beneath the chocolate and milk and cream, there was a slightly bitter scent of something unfamiliar. Hepzibah wouldn't have been smelling her cocoa before drinking it, she loved her cocoa…

"Not sugars Hokey used…"

Hokey wandered off. "Hokey didn't use sugars in Mistress's cocoa…"

Yes. Dumbledore had been here. No one would know that, though. No one would think to figure it out.

There was Hokey, taking the blame for it. How much easier it would be, to let a house elf take the blame than to launch an investigation into the death of a woman who had no family and only riches? The sooner the case was closed, the quicker her will could be read and her wealth distributed.

What bothered Tom more than the injustice of it was that, somehow, despite his occlumency, Dumbledore had known about Hepzibah and his friendship. Just like with Tom's family and Hagrid and now her, he was isolating him.

He would be weaker if he stood alone.

He grabbed the cup and locket and left. He could have waited till the reading of the will, but he was struck with a panic, a need to do something immediately.

He ripped his soul apart that night and put another piece of himself in Huffelpuff's cup.

Some time later when Dumbledore had him kill a muggle, he put another fracture of his soul in Slytherin's locket.

And he disappeared.


	6. Burn His Bridges

He never did return to Hogwarts to ask about the teaching position. For him, reality slipped away and returned only in rare times. He had built up a reputation, studying the Dark Arts, 'enjoying' the company of disreputable witches and wizards. They were always talking about a cause, their cause, the one he was leading...

A Slytherin at heart, he managed to find out what exactly he was doing as a Dark Lord from one of his 'followers' without alerting him or any of the others to the fact that he was clueless and dazed and very, very mentally weak.

They were out to create a world solely of purebloods. All muggle-borns and half-bloods were to be murdered as well as how ever many muggles got in the way or didn't. Also, he had apparently made a name for himself: Lord Voldemort. It was a combination of the letters from his full name, rearranged into a title that all would fear and respect.

It took ten years before he could struggle out of the web of control and darkness Dumbledore had created for him.

Though unsure of it being a wise idea now, he went to Hogwarts. Even if he wasn't lucid half the time, he hoped to be able to teach the students during times when he was.

Headmaster Dippet was… no longer Headmaster.

Tom kept his hatred well-veiled behind a wall of black as he stared down at Professor Dumbledore, sitting at the Headmaster's desk as if he belonged there. There was a newly hatched phoenix flapping its small, stubby wings, eyeing the fall from its perch on the desk to the floor.

"Tom," Dumbledore greeted.

"Dumbledore."

"It would be easier on us both if you would go with your destiny."

"It's not my destiny," he hissed chillingly. "It is what you want and I want no part of it."

"You look tired, Tom," Dumbledore redirected. "Why are you here?"

Tom clenched his jaw. He felt Dumbledore probing at his mind.

His occlumency, as weak as his will nowadays, caved.

"You want to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor." Dumbledore shook his head to himself. "I'm sorry, Tom, but I can't allow that."

He had figured as much.

He nursed his throbbing head in one shaky hand.

"You look tired," Dumbledore repeated. "And quite miserable. Your appearance has been changing as well."

He had noted that, but he had also noted that, with a simple _Finite_ charm, his appearance would return to his normal, charming self.

"It's believed that, the more horcruxes one creates, the more they distort themselves physically. The truth is, however, that it is the darkness in one's heart when they create the horcruxes that distorts them physically; the ugliness of one's soul coming out, you see. I have taken the liberty of changing you as time goes on, no need to thank me. Your first murder,"

It hadn't been _his_.

"created a sort of shadow inside of you, hence your eyes, but you remain, altogether, pure. It is rather peculiar, considering the things you have done."

"The things _you_ have done using _me_, Dumbledore," he said. "Do not delude yourself into thinking that you had no part in this."

"You have to rise up now," Dumbledore said gravely. "Grindelwald has been imprisoned for nearly fifteen years now."

"Oh?" There was a lot Tom had missed, shoved into the back of his own mind and forced to sleep through the years.

"Yes. It is your time now."

Tom stormed out of Dumbledore's office.

The first thing he did was pride himself on the fact that Dumbledore hadn't sensed his double agenda. He walked three times past the Room of Requirement and, when the door appeared, he opened it to complete and utter disorder and chaos. He waded through it and hid the diadem. Howarts would know where it was, but Dumbledore would never find it.

When he came out, Helena nodded sadly at him. "It's for the best."

"It is," he agreed.

~::~

"You, in a fit of rage, cursed the teaching position of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Now no professor will hold the position for longer than a year."

Tom raised a brow at Dumbledore's explanation. "What a shame that I have no memory of doing this."

Dumbledore nodded sagely. "It is one of the many things you will come to do for the sake of spiting me. In due time, I will be known as the only wizard you fear."

Tom met his dull blue eyes. "I have never, nor will I, fear you."

And it was true. All he could feel for Dumbledore was pure _hatred_.


	7. Call Them Cannibals

Death Eater…

What a ridiculous name.

He had thought so, but, apparently, it was also what he had come up with. His 'followers' were immensely proud to be called such, it seemed.

"What, Dumbledore?" he asked himself aloud, as he had come to in his more cogent moments. Who knew when Dumbledore was inside his mind? "Could you not come straight out and call them cannibals?"

He wouldn't have been so kind, despite himself. They devoured the fear and pain they caused in their victims, cursing them, hexing them, hurting them.

As Lord Voldemort, he found that he condoned rape, pedophilia, vorarephilia, human slaves, and necrophilia among other things.

How was that possible? He didn't even know what vorarephilia was till he subtly asked some of the sicker minds he found himself surrounded with (and he came to find that it was distasteful to an extreme; it being getting off while being eaten or eating someone else in a cannibalistic way, which cemented his belief that Death Eater was far too kind for what he needed to call his 'followers').

This was how Dumbledore planned the make the world better? Perhaps there were some evils that benefited the greater good, but this was…

This was beyond his comprehension.

He managed to take three children, two women, a man missing a leg, and a dog and put them in hiding before he blacked out again, all with the same lie that none of his 'followers' fought:

"I want him/her/it. Give him/her/it to me!"


	8. The Prophecy That Most Likely Was Not

Severus Snape was one of the followers he found he did relatively like. He wasn't sick or deranged; merely angry at the world and hungry for belonging. Tom rather wished Snape would stop spending so much time with Lucius, that twisted bastard, but he couldn't really say anything without causing suspicion.

He had long since determined that letting homicidal, immoral monsters know that their 'great and powerful Lord' was actually no less than a puppet would be detrimental to his health and to both the wizarding and muggle worlds at large.

At least, in this sense, he could play at having control over them. And, from the inside, he had already begun killing them off, playing it as being fits of rages or claiming that his victims were traitors to their cause.

He rarely had to give a reason, though, being Lord Voldemort and all, but, just in case, he would throw it out there.

He felt nothing over the killing of others. Especially these creatures that dared to call themselves humans.

"Please… Don't harm her."

This was why he liked Severus.

He happened to have a heart.

"You love her?"

They were, of course, speaking of the muggleborn witch Lily Potter. Snape had overheard a prophecy between none other than Dumbledore and a woman named Trelawney. Or so Snape thought. Tom had seen the familiar daze in his black eyes when he had reported back to him.

Whatever Snape had been made to believe he had heard, Dumbledore wanted Tom to go by it. If he didn't, Dumbledore would simply possess him again and make him do so.

It was all rather pointless, but, in the great scheme of things, the trail would only ever lead back to him, Lord Voldemort.

Because Tom Riddle had been evil since the day he was born. There were stories that he had tortured other children at the orphanage where he had been raised. There was a rumor that he might have been the last one to open the Chamber of Secrets (which was a rumor he was actually pleased with, as it took pressure off of Hagrid and he was already doomed). Proof was coming out about the murders he had committed as well.

It all unraveled beautifully, and Dumbledore, who had _always_ been suspicious of Tom Riddle, was idolized for seeing the darkness inside of the man who had become the next Dark Lord.

Snape tensed. "Yes, my Lord."

Severus waited for unimaginable pain to befall him.

Tom only wondered to himself what love felt like. He had been told by a few different sources, and had read in other places, that those children conceived from love potions grew without the ability to love. His father had sired him out of no wish of his own, but under the influence of Tom's mother's love potion.

Ergo, Tom should not be able to love. So far in life, he hadn't. So, perhaps, it was true.

It would be another reason why Dumbledore had chosen him to take the fall as the Dark Lord. It was sentimental.

_He had no heart to love with_, he could hear poets say, _and so had room to hate_.

Or possibly something else just as dark and foreboding.

"I will spare her life if I can," he told Severus, and watched his potions brewer break into relieved sobs.

He turned a mind to the prophecy. It felt incomplete to him. Possibly was, Dumbledore was hardly one to reveal the whole truth. He understood the gist of it, though.

He was going to murder an infant.

Tom allowed himself a brief moment of sarcasm. This would settle _nicely_ on his conscious.


	9. The Good Life After

Tom didn't remember dying. Then again, he never really died.

There had been a bright light and then he had been outside of his body, watching it obliterate rather dramatically. His dark cloak fluttered to the ground and the child he had been aiming to kill screamed his little head off.

He studied, for a moment, the lightning-shaped scar on the boy's forehead, entirely alike to the hand motions of an Avada Kedavra Curse.

He gave a phantom pat to the boy's head, no genius at comforting but not cold enough to do nothing. Beneath his light, airy touch, Harry, the name of the Potters' child, calmed the slightest bit. He looked up and around, searching, and then he stared in his general direction, green eyes far wiser than they should be.

Tom stayed there till Severus stumbled into the room. He collapsed beside the body of Lily Potter held her, sobbing, crying, desperate.

Tom almost wished he had been able to save her. Not that he hadn't wanted to, but he had come to accept that he couldn't win against Dumbledore in a battle of wills.

Harry watched them, silent, a few tears raining down his ruddy cheeks. Tom leaned down and pressed a kiss to Harry's scar, a sort of apology, and then he was gone.

~::~

He was content with life in Albania for quiet some time. He possessed snakes irregularly so that he could move around and adventure. It was dull and repetitive, but, again, contenting.

Dumbledore couldn't push his will on him as he was. He possibly knew that Tom was still alive, maybe had planned for it, but there was no literal mind for Dumbledore to control; simply an entity.

He had to jump bodies constantly; his presence within the snakes seemed to shorten their lifespan considerably. Sometimes, he didn't inhabit a body but stayed within the husk of a form he had condensed over the years. It was as small as a baby with thin limbs, ugly and weak. Tom dealt with it, though. Like he dealt with all things.

In the form of a serpent, he managed to sneak into nearby wizarding villages and keep in touch with what was happening.

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, they were calling the only survivor of the Potter Massacre. He had disappeared off the face of the earth and everyone assumed that he was being spoiled and loved. Dumbledore told them so.

The moment he heard that Dumbledore had been the one to say it, Tom left Albania and went in search of the poor boy. It was awkward, leaving his husk so far behind as he jumped from one animal to the other, constantly, moving from Albania through Italy, then France, across the English Channel, and into the United Kingdom. But he did it anyway, and in a decently short time too.

He wasn't sure how he knew where to look – not at first, that was.

Somehow, though, he found himself in a muggle place on a street where all the houses looked the same.

Slithering, he wandered to one of them, 4 Privet Drive, and snuck into its box-shaped backyard.

He left the snake body behind under the patio table where it died peacefully and floated into the home.

It was neat, impeccably so, and there was food being made by a small dark-haired boy at the oven while a fat child sat at the dining table.

It was, in fact, the fattest child he had ever seen, and, not long after him, came the fattest man and a stick-thin woman with an unappealing horse-like face.

"Boy, aren't you done cooking yet?" roared the man.

"In a minute, sir," the dark-haired boy murmured.

"Are you talking back to me, boy?"

"No, sir."

That pot had to be bigger than he was, Tom thought to himself as the child moved it towards the table. His thin arms trembled with the effort.

He set the food down and the family dug into it greedily.

The family, except for the dark-haired boy, who went and cleaned all the dishes he must have used to make the meal. Then he wiped down the counters and the sink and swept and mopped the floors for any crumbs or sauces that might have fallen.

By the time he was done, there was hardly a scrap left of the meal for him to eat.

The fact that he didn't complain meant that this was a common occurrence and he went about doing the dishes again.

Then he wiped down the dining table.

Lastly, he swept and mopped around the table.

As he went to go dump the dirty water outside, sloshing dangerously close to the lip of the mop bucket, the fat boy came thundering into the kitchen and shoved him out onto the patio. The small boy tripped and he and the plastic bucket went down.

The dirty water covered him and the bucket cracked beneath his slight weight.

"MUM!" screeched the fat boy. "MUM, HARRY'S MADE A MESS ON THE PATIO!"

Tom decided that, if he were still the Dark Lord, this would be a muggle child he might actually want to kill.

The boy quietly picked himself up with a glare set into his young face. He swiped his wet hair out of his eyes, away from his cracked glasses, and a lightning-shaped scar was revealed on his forehead.

He wasn't surprised that this was Harry Potter and that these were the conditions he lived in.

Harry gave the bucket a despairing look, as if he might just cry, as he caught sight of the crack.

Tom had an idea that the family wouldn't be so accepting of Harry breaking things, accidentally or not.

He reached out and, with the meager magic he had left, wandlessly fixed the crack. It sealed shut before Harry's eyes, seemingly by itself, and he watched the awe and relief flash across the boy's face before fear settled in deep.

He looked back at the fat boy, saw he wasn't watching, and the relief returned.

A muggle family, Tom understood, might not be accepting of magic. That could be why Harry was being treated this way.

The horse-faced woman came into the kitchen and saw the mess through the glass doors. The glare she sent at Harry was vicious enough to make Tom study the woman and ask himself if he had ever seen her amongst the Death Eater ranks.

When no familiar bells were rung, he decided to go with coincidence for a very rare change.

"Clean this up right now!" she screeched at him. "Can't you do anything right? Come along, Dudley, don't bother with him."

The fat boy, Dudley, happily followed after his mother.

Harry stayed behind to mop away the mess.

He reached out, much like he had the first night he had met the child, and pressed a kiss to his scar.

Harry gasped and looked around himself with wide eyes. Then, reverently, he put a hand to his forehead and a happy flush warmed his face.

Tom smiled to himself. He wasn't doing much of anything else lately, he told himself. He might as well help Harry in the small ways that he could.

~::~

He stored away morsels of food in the cupboard Harry slept in so that the Dursleys, as he had learned was their surname, could not starve him as severely.

He healed Harry's bruises and scratches slowly over time, luckily from incidences including his chores and not from physical abuse.

He fixed Harry's glasses over night, but wisely kept the tape on the nosepiece so that the Dursleys wouldn't notice.

He inhabited Harry's stuffed bear for some time, a ratty, tattered old thing that the Dursleys most likely didn't even know he had. Harry had some broken toys in his room, though not much else. There wasn't really room for much else.

It delighted Harry, whenever his bear started walking across the bed. The stuffed animal would prance right up to him and press ecstatic kisses all over his face and wrap short, stiff arms around his hands.

It made Tom feel good to do these things for Harry. He could never be forgiven for his past, but, for now, he could pretend that it was possible. Every time Harry smiled at something he did, or laughed, or went about his chores with bright, happy eyes, he felt himself grow a little lighter.

He wasn't exactly happy, but he wasn't unhappy either. He was a little more than content but nothing short of pleased. He was…

Relaxed?

Perhaps.

~::~

Even he knew he had an unusual fascination with kissing Harry's scar. He felt a connection to it.

It was when that thought went through him that he knew exactly how he had found Harry, exactly why he felt so attached to him.

Harry Potter was his sixth horcrux. But, _of course_! The murder of James and Lily Potter, as well as his pseudo-death caused by Lily's sacrifice born from love of her child, had caused two things to happen, respectively: one, his soul had fractured further, and, two, his soul had fractured _apart_.

Harry had been the object his magic had been directed at and, so, when his soul split, a sliver of it went into the boy.

Had he had a mouth to laugh with, he would have.

Bitterly.

Self-loathingly.

They would always have a connection; for however long Tom's horcruxes existed and he, as a result, existed, and as long as Harry lived, they would be tied together.

No, it was more than that…

They were…

Yes, that made sense, it explained his affections towards the boy. When his soul had entered Harry, it had taken with it his magical essence, his abilities and gifts. Given time, Harry would be capable of everything Tom had come to be capable of, or, at least, all of the things Dumbledore had been capable of through him.

It was, in rough terms, a bond. Their bond. For now, it was merely a mingling of magic, of their souls. In time, it would bind their hearts and minds. They could, if they ever wanted to, swap thoughts or memories or emotions.

Were Tom to have a body, that bond would eventually become physical.

He pressed his forehead to Harry's and felt pity for the boy like he had felt for no one else.

Dumbledore was going to take this boy and possibly destroy him in the same way he had Tom. Tom… couldn't let that happen. Not ever.

He was going to have to come back, somehow. Kill Dumbledore if he could or make Harry a hero if he had to. The Boy-Who-Lived, who had 'killed' the Dark Lord once, would surely be sent after him to kill him again. Dumbledore would have to be content with finding his glory as the one who had taught the Boy-Who-Lived everything, or he'd have to come out about his true agenda.

It wasn't ideal, but he had no other choice.

~::~

The final day he spent with Harry was at the zoo. It was the fat child's birthday and they had been forced to drag Harry along. In reality, Tom had had something to do with that. Harry deserved to go to the zoo and be awed.

Of course, Harry managed to brighten his day incredibly.

There was a habitat Dudley grew frustrated with. The boa constrictor within it wasn't moving. Of course, Harry came to the snake's rescue.

Darling boy.

That was when Harry learned he could talk to snakes. It was an incredible moment for Tom, knowing that he had shared his parselmouth with his bonded. They were the last two in the world to speak it, then.

But then it only grew to be more incredible when Dudley shoved Harry out of the way and Harry (accidentally) made the glass Dudley was leaning against disappear. The fat child fell forward into the terrarium, shocked to tears, and the boa constrictor slithered right over him and out of the habitat.

Not without a thanks to Harry, of course. Even serpents had manners and this one was impeccable.

The boa constrictor terrorized muggles on its way out and Tom watched it go, feeling smug.

That wasn't even the end of it, though.

No, that came when the window reappeared. With the fat child still inside of the habitat. The scream Harry's aunt let loose was the most delightful, most deafening thing he had ever heard.

~::~

He approached the hidden serpent just before the family was moving to make a hasty escape. He entered the serpent's mind for a short moment, long enough to say that he wanted it, _her_, to come with him. They needed to protect Harry.

She had a great liking for the 'hatchling' after he had helped her escape, so she agreed. Tom told her that, by the end of it all, she would most likely be killed.

She did not back down.

He told her that Harry would believe she was a monster.

She coldly shot back at him that he wouldn't be the first.

He asked her for her name.

_Nagini_.

He introduced himself as Tom.

For the first time, he felt a connection towards a familiar animal.

He told her he would be back for her later. Tonight, he needed to stay with Harry, and he wasn't strong enough to apparate her with him.

She told him she would wait and she curled up under a bush a fair distance away from the zoo, completely hidden.

He thanked her.

She thanked him.

It was amusingly easy.

~::~

He made sure to hold Harry in his phantom arms that night. He had been punished severely and he didn't understand why. Something freakish had happened at the zoo, but he wasn't sure what. He had understood a snake, but he wasn't sure how.

Tom kissed his scar, listening to Harry talk.

In due time, Harry would come to understand himself. Tom hated it now more than ever because the one to help Harry come along would be the greatest traitor to the wizarding world.

Harry went to sleep early in the morning, knowing he only had a few hours before he would be forced awake to do chores. Before, between, and after chores, he would be shoved back into the closet to live out his punishment.

He pressed his forehead to Harry's. "Be safe for me," he whispered to the boy.

Harry sighed and sleepily nuzzled him.

Without another pause, he disappeared.

He and Nagini retreated back into Albania, waiting for their chance to strike. Harry would hate them, but that hatred was necessary. They were saving him in the last way they could.

~::~

_Author's Note: Just about the longest chapter in this story._


	10. Pride and Pain and Preparation

Pride.

That was what he felt for his bonded when two consecutive years of actively trying to regain a body of any sort, going so far as to manipulate a poor, defenseless man and drink unicorn blood in Harry's first year and reopening the Chamber of Secrets in his second year, willingly try to suck the life out of a child (yes, it was unforgivable and Dumbledore had no part in it, but he was already damned and one more life wasn't going to make much more of a difference), were thwarted by him.

Pain.

That was what he felt as he said everything he said to Harry in his first and second year. He had even caused his bonded physical injury and that had not been a sacrifice he had been prepared for.

Well, he had been, but not for the sympathetic wounds he somehow managed to suffer without a physical form.

He would have liked for Harry to know the truth, know that Tom Riddle was not Lord Voldemort, that the man Harry looked up to was the evil one, that Dumbledore knowingly let Harry walk right into danger every time…

He would have liked for all of it, but he would never get it. Tom was, as far as everyone in the world was concerned, guilty. Changing the mind of one boy would not be enough, not if he wanted to keep Harry safe. One day, he would like for Harry to be happy.

If Harry so chose to believe him, and he so chose to tell Harry of the bond, and Harry _so chose_ to accept it, then what would become of Harry?

Tom was going to die, one way or another. If he somehow managed to succeed in killing Dumbledore and the world fell into his clutches afterward, Tom would die killing every one of his 'followers'. They were too many and Lord Voldemort having a change of heart would not convince them to join the light side and forget all of their crimes and deeds.

If Tom died, however, under the guise of Lord Voldemort, they would most likely scatter, such as they had the first time, terrified and lost without a leader.

He had had much time to think this through carefully.

Harry's third year, Peter Pettigrew, the man he assumed had told him where the Potters were, found him. With a servant, it proved to be much easier to do as he needed to do.

In Harry's fourth year, everything came to a peak.

A woman died for information they didn't even know they needed. Bartie Crouch Sr. was a weak-willed man. Another man died. Mad-Eye Moody was not who he seemed. Neither was the Tri-Wizard Cup what it appeared to be.

Across the graveyard in Little Hangleton stood his bonded and a handsome young man. Harry clutched at his scar in pain.

Tom would have to hurt Dumbledore for that. Their bond shouldn't cause Harry pain, not unless Dumbledore had hexed it to.

Which meant Dumbledore knew as much as he always had: everything.

Harry was screaming at the man, trying to tell him to grab the cup, go, go, _go_.

And Tom was proud that his bonded would sacrifice himself for another.

And he felt pain because of what he was about to do.

"Kill the spare," he hissed.

Peter did. The young man died instantly, before he even had a chance to defend himself.

Harry screamed, but he was okay with that. Harry needed to hate him. He could never understand that he was fighting the wrong monster, not while Tom was alive, anyway.

Peter secured Harry to the statue standing over his father's grave. He felt nothing for the man Dumbledore had killed under his name. But he still talked about it. He was under the impression that he had blathered a lot under Dumbledore's influence. Apparently, it was a trait of all megalomaniacs.

Peter began speaking the words Tom had taught him to, going with the ritual Tom had made up. And Harry watched with wide, glassy, horrified eyes.

Good.

Peter discarded him into a large cauldron where the potion was mostly complete except for the key ingredients. He floated through the thick liquid, drowning, but not really. He couldn't die, so he couldn't drown.

He thought of the words Peter was speaking:

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son… Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe."

And felt the objects splatter into the pot with him, disrupting the peace.

It was going to happen.

He would save his bonded, one way or another.

And the pot cracked.

And his body grew.

His body _burned_.

But he had a body, and that was half of what mattered.

The other half was that Harry would get through the night. Alive.

~::~

Harry would possibly never guess that he had thrown Expelliarmus at the same time he had snarled Avada Kedavra because of a mental nudge.

The Death Eaters were waiting for him to kill Harry. He was Lord Voldemort, it was his place to murder the Boy-Who-Lived.

Yet he let Harry win the war of wills. The Priori Incantatem was unexpected but appreciated, as it gave Harry added time to escape.

Harry departed with the body of the man he had come with. He had seen death now, would never forget it.

And he would hate Tom for it. He would hate him for the rest of his days.


	11. The Reunion of Black and Gray

Tom did keep the glamours Dumbledore had initially masked him with. It made him look the monster he wanted everyone to believe he was. It was intimidating, inhuman, mutated, and not even the Death Eaters had the gall to look in his bleeding red eyes.

The greatest part about it was that it was of his own free will.

Unlike this.

"Is it not unwise to meet your greatest foe like this?" Tom asked. He was situated quite comfortably in the Malfoy Manor, much to the honor of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy and the horror of one young Draco who was coming to realize that he _really_ didn't want to follow in his parents' footsteps.

Tom was slowly working on the boy, making sure he saw the worst of what the Death Eaters did in their spare time. He even told Lucius and Narcissa to make Draco watch what they did to their own victims. Lucius had done so without pause. Narcissa, deprived woman that she was, had loved her son and his innocence enough to try and put up a fight.

Good mother. But Tom had still had to punish her for her impudence. Just a Cruciatus Curse; punishments had been so much worse in the past when Dumbledore had been in control.

Dumbledore sat down at the writing table, looking old and giving off an air of something just as feeble.

"So you've come back, finally."

"I am sure you have been planning for this."

Dumbledore frowned at him. "I made it so easy for you. I employed your underlings, I confiscated several objects that would have helped you and brought them to where you could get them, and I even let Barty Crouch Jr. turn the Tri-Wizard Cup into a portkey."

He could feel Dumbledore probing at his mind and openly laughed at the fool.

"I have grown stronger in these past years, _Albus_. Time away from you turned out to be just what I needed."

Dumbledore expertly hid his displeasure and, instead, calmly replied, "But you're still not strong enough to kill me, Tom."

He allowed his smirk to fade slowly. "Not yet."

"You'll never be strong enough to kill me," Dumbledore reiterated.

"Not as you are," he agreed. "What are you here for?"

"I came to congratulate you, of course. You've accepted your destiny."

"I am sure I do you very proud."

"I just have one question."

"Of course you do." Tom's voice was heavy with disdain.

Dumbledore's eyes drilled into him. "Why didn't you kill him?"

"In case you have forgotten, I did. I heard that you held a spectacular eulogy for him."

"I meant Harry."

"Did he not tell you what happened? Or have you forgotten? You are far too old to keep playing these games."

"You wasted time instead of killing him outright," Dumbledore snapped at him. It was the harshest tone Tom had ever heard him use. "You're smarter than that."

Tom wisely bit back his reply and kept his shields strong as Dumbledore battered at his mind, trying to get in and understand what Tom was thinking.

"You seem to want the Boy-Who-Lived… to not live any longer," he husked. "Why is that, Albus? What could you possibly gain from his death?"

He already knew the answer to that. And, for once, he knew Dumbledore didn't know that he knew.

If Tom were to kill Harry, the horcrux stored inside of him would perish; anyone else and the horcrux would possibly live on, maybe even Harry with it. Horcruxes were particular on how they were defeated like that. Tom had created the horcrux; thus, he could destroy it. Then there was basilisk fang; that could do the trick, as he had found out in Harry's second year. Godric Gryffindor's sword would most likely be another solution. If Dumbledore managed to get rid of all of his horcruxes, he could kill Tom, once and for all. No glory shared.

The Boy-Who-Lived would be a distant memory, a lucky accident, compared to Dumbledore if he were to succeed. Dumbledore had purposely built him up to be a far worse, or, in twisted terms, better Dark Lord than even Grindelwald. His final fall would be magnificent and Dumbledore would never be forgotten.

A brilliant plan, no doubt.

Except Dumbledore most likely thought that Tom didn't know Harry was one of his horcruxes.

There was an echoing hiss through the room. Nagini slithered around Tom's feet and then reared her slim head up to glare at Dumbledore.

"Your final horcrux?" Dumbledore guessed.

"Would you like to find out?" Tom asked blandly.

Horcruxes had a way of defending themselves. Inanimate objects manifested illusions or illnesses. The living horcruxes, though, adapted. Harry was incredibly strong and had many of Tom's abilities.

Nagini had become poisonous. Lethally so. Her intelligence had risen above that of an average boa and she understood human speech, even though she could not reiterate it.

He wished for nothing more than for Nagini to lunge right then and there and tear into Dumbledore.

However, he was content with that she kept her mental shields strong; all familiar animals were capable of occlumency, though most chose to keep their minds open to their masters. Dumbledore had been known to be a stronger legilimen than most, however, and far less respectful.

"Difficult, is it not, Albus?" he asked after three minutes of Nagini and Dumbledore's staring at each other. "How much have you found out from her?"

Dumbledore sat back, breaking eye contact, and Tom knew he had learned nothing.

"One more question," Dumbledore said.

"There is always one more question."

"What made you change your mind?"

"About what? You are going to have to be clearer, I can not read your mind." He wasn't going to try to yet. Performing legilimency was known to weaken its counterpart occlumency. If he threw his mind at Dumbledore, Dumbledore could respectively do the same.

Tom had too many secrets at the moment to give them up that easily and he already knew all he wanted to know about Dumbledore. First and foremost, that he needed to die.

"You were so adamant about not becoming a Dark Lord. What changed your mind?"

"I am sure you expect me to answer you, as if I have no sense of self-preservation. However, my secrets will remain just that – mine and secret."

Dumbledore stared at him and, again, a pounding headache was born.

Some time later, the Headmaster left without learning a thing.


	12. An Ally On No Side and On Mine

"How strong do you keep your shields around Albus?"

Snape's head turned slowly towards him, an inky brow arcing up. "My Lord?"

"Do you keep them as strong around him as you do around me?"

Snape revealed nothing but slight indignation. "I hold no shields up around you, my Lord, you have free reign of my mind."

"And yet I do not, Severus. I see what you want me to see. You are as skilled at occlumency as you are at legilimency, do not lie to me."

Severus shuddered. "I would never, my Lord…"

"You would and we both know it."

Severus's head lowered. Undoubtedly, he expected to be cursed. Possibly even killed.

"I asked you a question, Severus. Do you keep your shields as strong around Albus as you do me?"

"Of course."

Tom stared at him for a very long moment.

Severus had always been an exceptional liar. He was playing a very dangerous role, spying for both him and Albus. It was to no surprise that Severus would feel the need to keep secrets from the both of them; how else could he remember himself as he played his duo parts so well?

"You will open your mind to me, Severus. I wish to tell you about my life. And then, when I am done, I wish to tell you about Harry's. Then you will understand who the true enemy is."

And it would serve one single purpose: Severus would be loyal to no one but Harry.

Tom did not particularly care whether or not Severus served him or Dumbledore. As long as he would throw himself between Harry and a Killing Curse, Tom would spoil the man with ranks and the easier missions and throw the rarest ingredients at him for the potions he enjoyed to make.

"My Lord?" Severus asked, showing only a moment of confusion.

And then he fell to his knees, crying out as Tom's life invaded his thoughts, became a part of his being, became _his_ life.

Albus Dumbledore approaching him, good and bad, make the choice.

His school years, the false accusations, Hagrid's innocence, the truth behind the deaths of his muggle family.

After school, Albania, Borgin and Burke's, Hepzibah Smith, Hokey, Hepziba's gifts to him, more death.

Darkness, confusion, no understanding of what was happening, Dumbledore taking up permanent residence in his mind.

Coming back to Hogwarts, Dumbledore's the Headmaster, diadem in the Room of Requirements, Dumbledore putting a curse on the Defense Against the Dark Art's teaching position, blaming it on Tom.

The ridiculousness of the title of 'Death Eater', saving victims, no fear of Dumbledore.

Severus begging for Lily's life, knowing Severus's memories had been altered, knowing Dumbledore wanted him to go after the Potter's, no choice.

Not remembering reaching the Potters, but dying without really dying. Comforting Harry, watching Severus break over Lily's death.

Albania, snakes, the rumors, the whispers, Harry was living the life so Dumbledore said, searching for Harry, finding him, the muggle family, the humiliation, the cracked bucket, repairing it.

Feeding Harry when he could, the abuse Harry went through, the bruises and scratches, the broken toys, desperate for affection.

Discovering Harry was his horcrux, his bonded, he would have to kill Harry if the horcrux was to be destroyed, knowing Dumbledore would do to Harry what he had done to him, knowing he had to leave, he had to be the Dark Wizard again.

The zoo, Nagini, the accidental magic.

The punishment, the leaving.

Years of trying to get back into power, succeeding.

Killing without wanting to, needing to hold up the image Dumbledore had created for him.

Dumbledore continuing to try and control him, Harry under Dumbledore's control.

Everything poured into Severus's mind, making the man scream, and Tom didn't stop until it was all over with.

He pulled back, panting. If Dumbledore were to know of how mentally weakened he was at that moment, he would have easily overtaken Tom's mind.

Snape lay on the ground for a very long time, stiff and quiet.

Eventually, he began sobbing and Tom let him.

He stopped after some time, and Tom let the silence settle.

"M-My… Tom…"

He stared at Snape. It had been whoever knew how long since someone had called him by his given name. "Yes?"

"I never knew."

"Of course you never knew."

Snape's mind still open, Tom caught the doubt that flew through his thoughts. "They are not fake memories. A life of fake memories is something I do not have time to create."

"You had years," Snape pointed out bravely.

Tom grabbed Snape by the ruff of his robes and apparated away.

A moment later, they were down the street from 4 Privet Drive.

"Have you ever been here, Severus?"

Snape gave his surroundings a weary look. "No."

"Let me show you where Harry lives."

And he did. He used a vial of veritasirum from Snape's robes and forced the three muggles to tell Snape everything about Harry and their mistreatment of him. They even admitted to the fact that Dumbledore was paying their way of life so that they would keep Harry. Vernon, Harry's elephant of an uncle, hadn't had a job in years.

They showed Snape where Harry used to sleep and then showed him the barren, small room he now had. They listed off the chores Harry did in a day and told them that Albus Dumbledore, the 'freak' that checked up on Harry every once in awhile, had told them that Harry wasn't allowed to use magic outside of school when Harry had tried to use magic to get them to back off.

When Harry had used his godfather as a threat, Dumbledore had told them that Sirius Black would never be able to get to them.

In short, every time Harry had tried to defend himself, Dumbledore had stepped in and stripped him of his protection.

After three days of interrogating the Dursleys, keeping them from eating, forcing them to mindlessly clean till their fingers bled and their flesh swelled under duress, letting them sleep for only an hour and only on the cold, hard ground of their bedrooms, they left.

They, of course, obliterated them first so that no one would know what had happened, but the muscle memory, the hunger ache, the sore bodies, would be a reminder, one without a face but a presence.

"Why haven't you tried to get Dumbledore to admit to the truth?" Severus asked him.

"Who would believe it?" he questioned back.

"With enough veritaserum and witnesses, everyone."

"Veritaserum, brewed and given to him by a suspected Death Eater, whose status can be confirmed by a grotesque, foolishly apparent tattoo on his forearm."

"No one would have to know it's me," Snape defended his plan.

"Except Dumbledore, who will know. And he will find a way to clear his name and drag yours through the filth. He saved you from Azkaban once because you were useful, but he will not spare you the second time." He cut Snape a scathing look.

Tom knew how Dumbledore thought. If such a simple plan had ever had a single chance of working, he would have used it by now. Dumbledore knew exceptional ways to get out of trouble and Snape and the last of his naivety would stand no chance.

"I need you free and I need you to guard… my bonded."

Those two words, spoken aloud, felt far too intimate rolling off his tongue.

At the same time, he felt almost deliriously pleased.

"It was your promise to Lily to protect him, Severus," he pointed out, his trump card. "Now I am asking you for the same promise and I dare hope you do better this time than the last."

Snape never wasted time on excuses. He did not whine and say that Dumbledore had always told him that Harry was being loved and spoiled, he did not complain and say that he had to act to hate Harry because he had thought Lord Voldemort would punish him otherwise, he did not grumble and waste time on self-pity for his failure.

"I will do what I can," Severus vowed.

Tom knew better than to ask for more, not while Dumbledore lived.


	13. Give Fear Where Fear Is Due

It began as a sting. A slight pinch of discomfort. And then, across the back of Tom's hand, words appeared, darkened with his blood and etched into his skin.

_I must not tell lies…_

His hand curled into a loose fist. The words were carved into his flesh, again and again, blood trickling, pain getting steadily worse.

"A blood quill," he named to himself. He had never seen one himself, but he had heard of its dark uses and some of the Death Eaters were quite happy to crow about their ownership of such a writing utensil.

Now that he had identified what was causing this self-injury, he turned inward to discover why it was happening.

Harry's occlumency was not improving. Snape had taken to try and teach his bonded how to shield his mind against Dumbledore under the pretenses of trying to shield Harry from him.

But then he simply stopped caring for a moment because Harry was using a blood quill to write on a piece of parchment. There was no ink, nor did any sentences appear. Never ceasing, the statement was, instead, carved into his skin.

_I must not tell lies._

Standing over him, a gleam in her eyes, was a pink beast. From the glimpses of the room Harry was in that he could catch, the pink beast's lair was just as vibrantly blinding with pictures of kittens everywhere.

Tom hissed to himself, displeased, disgusted, and very annoyed. He would recognize that pink beast anywhere: Dolores Umbridge. Senior Under-Secretary to the Minister of Magic. She was responsible for some of the anti-werewolf legislation two years ago, from what Tom had gathered. All around, a terrible choice for a school professor.

So, this was Dumbledore's next move. Tom could imagine that Dumbledore would say that the Ministry had forced him to hire a member of their council. However, even the Ministry would find Umbridge's 'disciplinary actions', as Tom was seeing, unorthodox.

Dumbledore would have chosen Umbridge simply because of that. Dumbledore was proving himself to be of the firm belief that Harry was to not know a moment of piece. Of course, also choosing Umbridge of all people would show Dumbledore to be the better person. It was not unlike taking a person of average looks and standing them next to a horrendous example of the same gender so as to make the average person appear far more attractive.

Tom took the edge off of the pain for his bonded, staying with him for every moment.

_I must not tell lies._

He didn't doubt that the 'lie' was his own return. The Ministry was not ready to face it yet, he understood. Quite cowardly and stupid of them all, really.

He would have to make a public appearance soon, then. As much as he would rather attack Hogwarts right then and there and go to his bonded's aide, that would not do. For one, Dumbledore had warded Hogwarts against him. For another, Snape, who would be able to do something about it, couldn't.

Dumbledore would wonder how Snape had found out. Harry was not one for complaining to others, even when it would be most wise. If Snape could play off finding out accidentally, he wouldn't be able to get Harry to stand still long enough for him to care for his wounds. If Snape were to approach Umbridge, she would deny his claims and have the Ministry take action against him. If Snape went to Dumbledore…

He almost smiled at the thought. Since when had Dumbledore ever done anyone any good that did not benefit him?

"What is your next move, Albus?" he asked himself aloud. "How will you appear to be the hero this year?"

His fingers twitched. _I must not tell lies._

~::~

His spies in the school answered his question.

Harry had been running a secret Defense Against the Dark Arts Club, seeing as how Umbridge had not been teaching them anything and they needed to know how to properly defend themselves.

But then they were exposed, betrayed from within like everything and everyone else in the world. Drastic measures were to be taken, was the basic line of thinking. Most of them against Harry.

Except it didn't happen that way. Oh, no, of course not. Because their club _would_ be named Dumbledore's Army, and there _would_ be a list of everyone who had been in the club with the club's name at the top of it, and Umbridge _would_ get her hands on such a list.

Dumbledore _would_ take the fall and disappear in a glory of flames.

Tom had dismissed his spies, annoyed.

Umbridge would be in control of Hogwarts now. Now would come an age of oppression and despair, now would come a time of hatred and need. Hogwarts would be desperate for Dumbledore back and, when both the students and other professors would believe the end near, Dumbledore would return. Unquestioned, beloved, missed. A hero again.

Tom felt the disturbance before he even turned around to see what had caused it. "Is this where you will be hiding, Ablus? In my quarters, under the glare of the man who detests you most in all worlds?"

Dumbledore sat at his writing table. "I will be staying here for the time being," he agreed somberly. "I will be leaving frequently, however."

"Grimmauld Place, I presume."

"You would presume right." Dumbledore gave him a narrowed look. "You've yet to take action against the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. Why is that?"

Tom ignored him and turned an eye on Nagini. She lied curled on his bed, slitted eyes glaring at Dumbledore.

'_I want to kill him,'_ she hissed. _'I want to kill him now.'_

'_Now is not the time.'_

"I have always found parselmouth to be a fascinating language," Dumbledore announced. "Perhaps you can teach me it."

Tom felt the throbbing begin. The cracking of his skull, the pressure. Dumbledore was trying to take control again.

"You are not the heir of Slytherin," he reasoned coldly. "Parselmouth can not be _taught_."

"You're right, of course." Dumbledore nodded once. "But I can learn it through you, can't I? Or through Harry. He is a parselmouth too, you know."

The veiled threat, delivered lightly, nearly cost Tom his body as his occlumency weakened under the onslaught of his own emotions. He caught himself just in time before Dumbledore could slip into his thoughts and closed his eyes.

"You do care for the boy, don't you? How odd. Why is that, Tom?" Dumbledore was watching him carefully.

Dumbledore would begin to suspect that he knew things if he kept his silence. "His parents perished by my wand, no matter your forced will upon mine," he smoothly replied. "I know what it is like to be an orphan, completely without the truth, manipulated by a man that I should have been able to trust." He gave Dumbledore a pointed look. "I sympathize with him."

"You got angry for him," Dumbledore pointed out.

"I often get angry for him. I imagine many would if they knew the truth of his past, present, and future. Just some time ago, I was angry because a pink-obsessed witch was forcing him to write with a blood quill…"

Dumbledore pursed his thin lips at him. "He has dealt with worse, Tom. And he will come across far worse. A few scratches will not kill him."

"She aims to break him."

"If she succeeds, then that is at no one's fault but Harry's. He should be strong enough to handle a simple blood quill."

Tom's vision blurred.

"Our years apart did make you _more_ resistant to my possession," Dumbledore agreed to some earlier point they had made, as if it somehow tied into their current conversation. "However, I am seeing that it did not make you completely so. I had thought that you had given into your destiny, and yet you stay out of sight, causing no amount of chaos that would reveal your rebirth. I fear you have been lying to me."

Nagini's head was raised, tongue flicking out. She was alarmed.

Tom grabbed onto the footboard of his bed, knuckles white, a cold sweat breaking out. "You do fear, Albus," he hissed through the anguish. "You fear that you will not be the hero everyone wants. You fear that the people you must control will become uncontrollable. You fear those that they think ill of you, and, most of all, you fear _me_."

He gasped when the pressure suddenly relented.

"I do not fear you, Tom."

"You do, Albus. I see it in your eyes every time I look at you, that damnable twinkle that would be best snuffed out. You fear me because you can not always control me and, one day, your power over me will fail when you need me most."

When he looked up from the design of Nagini's scales, from the comfort of her winding length around his arm, Dumbledore was gone.

Tom was right and they both knew it.


	14. The Good Man A Casualty

He had been taking advantage of his bond with Harry to send his bonded visions. He used them so that Harry would know when others were in trouble. Sometimes, he did it just to remind Harry that he existed.

This last time, however, he had used it to lure Harry into the Department of Mysteries. Harry needed to pick up the prophecy himself. No other would do.

Tom had wanted to know the truth; what did the prophecy say? Was there even a prophecy?

Of course, Harry never let anything be that simple. Not that Tom blamed what happened in the Department of Mysteries on Harry. He had been the one to send Harry the vision and Harry had been the one to try and get help from the Order of the Phoenix, the sad group of fools Dumbledore had brought together to fight the evils he himself created.

There weren't supposed to be any casualties. He hadn't even expected any of the Death Eaters to perish. After all, they were facing Hogwart _students_. Students who weren't capable of murder and he hoped would never be capable of it. Except for Harry, that was.

He expected Harry to kill him one day.

Things escalated. Got out of control. Bellatrix, a woman that should never have become involved with such a delicate mission, threw a Killing Curse at Sirius, one of the members of the Order of the Phoenix and, more importantly, Harry's godfather. Tom heard he fell through the Veil upon being hit. There wasn't even a body left behind to recover.

Harry went after Bellatrix. Though Tom wouldn't have minded her death, he did mind Harry killing unnecessarily. Not even for revenge, especially for such a reason.

Of course Tom had attacked Harry, he needed his bonded to hate him, to remember to hate him, to despise him and always know that he would never change, that Harry would need to rid the world of him if he ever wanted peace. Bellatrix escaped meanwhile and Tom made a mental note to find something to punish her for later on. It would be suspicious if he caused her untold agony for killing a wizard of the light.

Tom had planned to leave before Harry sustained any terrible damage, though. The worse had already been done, Harry's godfather had been taken from him.

Then, Dumbledore.

A battle. Epic and brilliant and Dumbledore was obviously getting back at him for what had been discussed about his fears as he attempted to show Tom as the true coward.

But the knowledge burned bright in both of them. Dumbledore was stronger. And so was his fear of his foe.

~::~

Tom heard later about the possession of Harry Potter. He was rather curious how Dumbledore managed to remain both within and without the boy. Such power was surely intimidating.

Yet it served another good purpose. Apparently, Tom had all but begged Dumbledore to kill him in Harry's body. Kill Harry and finish off Lord Voldemort, was the condensed version of what had been said. Of course, Dumbledore refused the perfect chance to be rid of a world evil, simply because he could not bear to kill Harry himself. And Harry was aware of all of it.

What Tom didn't hear about, but knew, was Dumbledore's surprise when Harry threw him out of his body and mind.

Dumbledore used that to his advantage as well, though. So, when Lord Voldemort was thrown out of Harry, Lord Voldemort was revealed to approaching Ministry figures. Lord Voldemort was no longer in hiding.

The Ministry, and many wizards and witches, were to be very apologetic towards the wise and powerful Albus Dumbledore. How could they have ever doubted the man? What would Dumbledore do now to defend them? They needed Dumbledore…

But they needed Harry Potter too, and they spoke of him just as much, in just as good and bad words. Some blamed him for Voldemort's return and most others wanted him to perform another miracle and kill You-Know-Who for the second time in his young life.

"Dumbledore will be very cross," Tom told Nagini. She nodded.


	15. Choosing What Bridge To Burn

Severus burst into his private rooms, somehow maintaining his untouchable cool all the while. How he achieved this and the look of frantic disbelief was beyond even Tom.

"Tom, Dumbledore has perished." Some regal pride exposed itself and his shoulder set back sharply and his chin turned up. "I killed him."

Tom let him have his moment. And then he mercilessly took it from him. "No, you did not."

He gestured towards the phoenix that was perched on his writing table. Its once void black eyes had been replaced with twinkling blue.

Severus stared for a very long moment, expression mostly blank and somewhat gaping, as if the horror of the situation was simply too much for him to bear.

Then, suddenly, "_Fuck_."

"Somehow, that also describes my feelings of this predicament."

It was rather brilliant, really. Dumbledore, making a horcrux of his beloved pet phoenix Fawkes and possessing it when his own body was destroyed.

A damned _phoenix_. They were impossible to kill, they simply rebirthed themselves. They healed themselves if need be, and they _flew_.

That last part was very important because, had this particular phoenix not had the ability to fly, Nagini would have been successful in her earlier attempts to catch it, strangle it, and devour it.

Then again, seeing as how phoenixes had the nasty habit of self-combusting, she most likely would have gotten as far as catching it before being forced to release it in a great deal amount of pain.

"Have you trapped him in the room?" Severus asked.

"No," he answered blandly. "He has trapped me."

Because, what would be his life if Dumbledore didn't have the ability to use his magic from within a magical creature?

And what would be a moment of peace if Dumbledore wasn't trying to drill a hole through his skull, directly into his thoughts.

Severus reeled as Dumbledore, within Fawkes, swung his attentions towards him.

Even while Severus was under siege, Tom couldn't move. He was in a body bind standing up and the wordless, wandless magic frustrated him.

"Severus," he hissed, "get out. Be prepared. Remember everything I have told you, forget nothing, _nothing_, Severus."

He was going to have to give up something; either his mind or his body.

He knew many too precious things to give up his mind.

"Severus," Tom managed to catch Snape's eyes out of the corner of his own. "I am sorry."

For everything and nothing, for what was his fault and what wasn't, for what had happened and what was going to, for everything he didn't need to apologize to Severus for and everything he did.

And he was.

Severus disappeared behind a swirl of black.

There was an aged chuckle in his mind. _Hello, Tom._


	16. Lose Control, Lose It

Tom was not surprised that Dumbledore tried to kill Severus to regain control of the Elder Wand.

Nor was he surprised that it was Severus he attacked and not Draco. It was a conundrum in reality; the Elder Wand, forcibly taken from the master before to belong to the next. So who would the Elder Wand obey? Draco, who had disarmed Dumbledore, or Snape, who had killed his physical form, therein in killing him in every sense of the word?

When the Elder Wand still didn't accept him, Tom still was not surprised. Nor was Dumbledore.

That was also for two reasons.

The first being that it wasn't a surprise that the Elder Wand had accepted Draco as its master (however a bad idea that was), and the second being that Dumbledore had thought he would be vindictive and use Nagini to try and annihilate Severus.

Nagini knew their cause and she knew Severus was important to it. She did attack Severus, and she did inject venom, but not enough to kill him. Severus would appear dead for a small amount of time, bodily functions coming to a near stand-still, maybe stopping altogether for a moment or two, but that was it. Given time, he might have muscle dysfunctions, bad eyesight, perhaps blindness, possibly be mute, and there would be quite the scar left behind, but that was the beauty of it.

Severus would live to have these problems. Hopefully, he would appreciate it over having no problems and being dead.

He knew why Dumbledore let him gain consciousness for that moment. He wanted him to see Severus die, having guessed for himself the alliance they had against both sides of the war.

Like he had used him against Hagrid and had killed Hepzibah and his muggle family under his name.

It was supposed to stun him, weaken his shields, but it didn't. Dumbledore remained in the forefront, in control of his body, while Tom was metaphorically draped over his memories, using himself as his last defense. Even being forced unconscious, he could not be 'moved' from where he was.

Dumbledore sensed this. Painfully, he forced Tom to sleep again.

And he did.

He slept with the knowledge that Dumbledore didn't know that Snape had discovered and practiced a way to get rid of the phoenix.

It helped that no one had removed the basilisk corpse from the Chamber of Secrets. Severus had stabbed Faux with a basilisk fang to make doubly certain that the horcrux in the bloody bird wouldn't live on.

It made Tom quite content with the knowledge that Dumbledore didn't know this. The downfall of all horcruxes was that it could not be sensed when they were destroyed.

~::~

Of course Dumbledore would use him to put Hagrid under the Imperius Curse. For a brief moment, he was conscious again, only to watch the familiar glisten of betrayed tears in the half-giant's eyes and the tremble of his mouth through his scraggly beard. Hagrid was forced to move with him and the Death Eaters he supposed Dumbledore had gathered.

It angered him, but not enough to lower his shields.

Dumbledore forced him to sleep again.

~::~

He awoke, for the briefest of moments, to watch Harry crumple to the ground.

Dead.

He roared with pain, anger, rage, hatred, and, instead of making his occlumency weak, it created a barrier between him and Dumbledore. He put everything he felt into it, only emotions, no images nor thoughts nor words, but only boiling colors and passion.

He managed, slightly, to push Dumbledore back, surprising the unwanted presence in his mind. He nearly had Dumbledore on the edge of his mind before, with a flare of power, Dumbledore had shoved him back.

It felt as if his mind was being physically raped as Dumbledore abused him back into a stupor. The agony went bone-deep and he felt such a tear in his soul, so much greater than what he had ever suffered before, greater than the pain of creating horcruxes, the greatest anguish ever.

And then he let the emotions flow away from him, into Dumbledore, and he stood, mentally, coldly, between the monster that was and his memories.

They were precious now. His short time with Harry, his brief alliance with Severus. He didn't have much to be happy about, rarely did, and he would hold onto these things with everything he had.

Dumbledore forced him into oblivion and the world went dark.


	17. You're Family Because You've Sacrificed

It was a sensation. Not an image or a thought, but a feeling. As if he was slipping away, emotionless, weightless…

Then there was motion. A fluttering. No, a clawing. Something was escaping… wherever he was. He wasn't sure, did not care to make sense of it, but some last shred of relevance made him reach out and snatch whatever it was that was wherever he was.

He caught, for a brief moment, an impression of wild, old blue eyes. And he knew.

"Have I perished, Albus?" he somehow managed to ask, though he wasn't sure how the question formed or even how it was spoken. "My body, has it been destroyed?"

"Let me go, Tom!"

But he held on. Somehow. "No."

"_Tom_!"

Dumbledore was weak now, though.

When Tom died, he made certain he did not die alone.

~::~

Everything was white. Cold white. For as far as he could see, there was absolutely nothing except for him and white.

He picked himself up off the ground, balanced on disfigured limbs; it was the destruction of his soul. It had melded itself back together all wrong and he was distorted, nothing quite right, and he felt it in his weak legs and arms and his oversized hands and feet and in his heavy head and scrawny neck. He was naked and he wanted to be warm, but there was nothing but the cold.

He attempted to conjure up a blanket for himself. Luckily, he didn't put much hope behind it, because nothing appeared.

This, he decided, was limbo. He had not passed on, nor was he a ghost.

Would he be stuck there for all eternity?

Who knew.

He wrapped his stick-thing arms around himself, hands spanning from shoulders to elbows, and trudged on.

There wasn't much else he could do except walk and look forward to, somewhere, an end to the cold white. In limbo, nothing could be certain, he supposed. Staying still would not do him much good, that much was certain.

He didn't make it three steps before he felt something shift in the air. It was familiar and… hated.

He turned around and there was a more human-looking body curled up on the ground.

"Albus," he croaked. His voice didn't have much strength in limbo, it seemed. "What a pleasure, running into you here."

The wizard slowly uncoiled himself and stared at him sadly. "How can this be… How can I be here?"

"The horcrux, remember?" Tom reminded him.

"I should not have died… Faux can not be killed easily…"

"But you did. And here we are, together, in limbo."

"How?"

"Severus is quite a novel man, and vindictive as well. I believe there was a basilisk fang involved when he went after your beloved pet, just as you used me to go after the woman of his heart."

"No, no, I can not accept this."

"But you must, Ablus." Tom's eyes flashed. "It appears to have become your destiny."

Dumbledore looked up. Something happy entered his dull eyes. "No, it appears not to be."

Tom followed the line of his gaze.

Not too far away were people. They hadn't been there a moment ago, Tom knew that for certain, and yet they were impossible close now.

He recognized all of them: Harry's parents, Harry's godfather, the werewolf, the werewolf's wife, one of those damned confusing twins, the auror he had sent Peter and Barty Crouch Jr. to kidnap Harry's fourth year…

"Wotcher, Tom," the werewolf's wife greeted.

"We're here to pick you up," Harry's mother, Lily, called out, smiling.

"Yeah, no need to waste away in this place," her husband seconded.

The auror was already walking away. "Well? Move on! We have places we'd rather be instead of waiting for you!"

Sirius, Harry's godfather, looked directly at him. "Watching over Harry and all, you know how that is. Can't trust the troublemaker alone, now can we?"

"He is alive?" he couldn't help but ask.

"When you took Harry's blood to complete your potion so that you could have a body, my love transferred from him to you," Lily explained. "As well as blended in with the love you felt for him yourself. The Killing Curse destroyed the horcrux in him, but his connection to you brought him back. He was in-between the living world and the dead for some time, though. He had a vision of a place for crossing, in this case, Platform 9 ¾, and spoke to the manifestation of a figure that he thought of as wise and kind in his life, someone he would always turn to for answers."

Dumbledore, Tom instantly knew. His heavy head dropped as he stared down at his mutated form. He could only hope that the Dumbledore Harry conjured up for himself was not the same Dumbledore that truly was.

"… Lily?" Dumbledore's voice was incredibly weak. "James? I don't understand, this is Lord Voldemort you are talking to."

"We know, Albus," the werewolf said. "We know everything."

"Remus," James growled, "don't talk to him. Like we need to encourage Lord Voldemort."

"No, _Tom_ is Lord Voldemort." Dumbledore's voice was getting high and weedy.

But they ignored him as if he didn't exist.

Suddenly, Dumbledore was miles away, just barely visible as the tiniest dot. If the floor, if there was a floor, had not been flat, the wizard would have been completely out of sight.

"Ready to go?" the werewolf, Remus, asked him patiently. His wife and the auror were already gone. The twin waited mutely with a mischievous flare in his eyes.

Sirius clapped James and Remus on the back and then turned around. He, too, disappeared.

"I am not innocent," Tom felt he needed to clarify to them. "I have done terrible things of my own free will."

"But you did it for Harry," Lily pointed out. James was missing. "And you took care of Harry when we couldn't."

"That makes it all better," Remus murmured.

The twin was gone.

In the next moment, so was Remus.

Lily stretched out her hand towards him. "This is a very depressing place. Let's go somewhere else while we wait for Harry, okay? Somewhere better."

He grasped her hand with all the fragile strength in him. "Does Harry know the truth?" About him, about Dumbledore, about the lies and the betrayal. Could he have learned after he had defeated them? Or would he forever be in the darkness?

They began walking and Lily shook her head. "Everyone believes Severus is dead, though he's really gone into hiding. He deserves the peace, but he's the last living person who knows the truth."

"So Harry will never know."

"No. Someday, hopefully a very long time from now, we will tell him the truth. He deserves to know, even if it will hurt him."

"He is strong," Tom pointed out. "And, if he can not bear it alone, he will not be unaided." Even if he couldn't stand Tom.

"That's right," Lily agreed cheerfully.

Tom did not see the bright light as they approached it. Perhaps it simply materialized itself from thin air. However it happened, he found himself and Lily in an orb of overwhelming radiance, completely unalike to the white of limbo. It was warm and transforming.

It was welcoming.

He was, for the first time ever, _home_.

~::~

_The End_.


End file.
